


the language of death

by Padraigen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Swap, De-Aged Harry Potter, Falling In Love, Gen, Gryffindor Harry Potter, Harry Potter & Tom Riddle Attend Hogwarts Together, Harry and Death Share a Body, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Master of Harry Death, No character bashing, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Sane Tom Riddle, Sharing a Body, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Time Skips, Time Travel, Young Tom Riddle, also, fyi: generous changes made to canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:02:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28841349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Padraigen/pseuds/Padraigen
Summary: “You don’t think he died?”“I’m afraid I don’t know.” Dumbledore’s gaze once again found Harry’s. “But that is beside the point.”“What is the point, sir?”“That boy had a profound effect on Tom Riddle,” Dumbledore said assertively. “After he disappeared, Tom was never the same.”—Waking up in the body of a little boy sixty years in the past was not what Harry expected would happen when he was hit by the Killing Curse.Waking up in the body of a little boy claiming to be Death, even less so.
Relationships: Death & Harry Potter, Death/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 25
Kudos: 235





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my new fic!
> 
> This work will deviate from canon in parts. No major warnings other than what you would normally expect from these two. Harry will get de-aged in this fic, but there will be no underage shenanigans. Anything happening between Harry and Tom will be when Tom is at least sixteen, which I believe is the age of consent in the UK (feel free to check me on that, and let me know if I'm wrong).
> 
> I don't have a concrete plan for this story, so if there's something you'd like to see, let me know! I can't promise I'll add it in, but I'd still like to know your thoughts.
> 
> With that, I hope you'll enjoy!

_“There is something else you may like to know, Harry.” Dumbledore leaned forward in his chair, setting his folded hands on the desk in front of him._

_“What is it, sir?” Harry asked curiously._

_“There was a young man. He attended Hogwarts with Tom.” Dumbledore paused and his gaze shifted so he was staring out over Harry’s right shoulder. His blue eyes flashed with something akin to sadness. “He was one of my brightest students.”_

_Harry sat impatiently, clenching his jaw so he wouldn’t start demanding what this had to do with anything. Whatever this was clearly caused Dumbledore sorrow, and Harry didn’t want to be rude or callous. Not when Dumbledore was finally telling him things._

_“He and Tom were… close. I daresay he was one of Tom’s only friends,” Dumbledore continued. A grim look stole across his weathered face then, his lips thinning and his eyes darkening with regret. Harry thought he had never seen him look so old. “But there was an accident.”_

_“An accident?” Harry prodded, as gently as he was capable of._

_Dumbledore huffed and then shook his head. “No,” he said, much to Harry’s surprise. “I suppose it wasn’t an accident at all. And it would do him a great disservice to remember it as such.”_

_Harry tried not to let his mounting irritation show on his face, more than a little fed up with Dumbledore’s enigmatic habits. But fortunately Dumbledore was quick to carry on._

_“It was an attack. An attack the boy never should have known about, let alone been in the middle of.” With these words it was clear that Dumbledore held himself liable for whatever had happened to the boy which he spoke of._

_“What happened to him?” Harry asked after a few moments of silent reflection. More on Dumbledore’s part than his, as he still didn’t have much of an idea of what Dumbledore was trying to tell him._

_“No one knows for certain. As far as anyone can say, a misfired spell caused his disappearance. Most believe he died.”_

_“And what do you believe?”_

_Dumbledore’s expression turned troubled. “I am not sure. I spent many years researching what may have happened, but I never found anything.”_

_“You don’t think he died?”_

_“I’m afraid I don’t know.” Dumbledore’s gaze once again found Harry’s. “But that is beside the point.”_

_“What is the point, sir?”_

_“That boy had a profound effect on Tom Riddle,” Dumbledore said assertively. “After he disappeared, Tom was never the same.”_


	2. king's cross

A burst of pain rippled through Harry’s chest, bright green light flashing to white before his closed eyelids. _Avada Kedavra_ echoed all around him.

And then there was nothing.

—

For many moments that could have been years or could have been seconds, Harry floated. The constant ringing in his ears was the only thing reminding him of his existence.

_Harry Potter… The boy who lived._

_Avada Kedavra!_

_Harry Potter…_

_You’ve been so brave._

_Harry…_

_Until the very end…_

_“Harry.”_

And suddenly Harry’s eyes flew open. To—of all places—King’s Cross Station.

—

A burst of noise and light and movement was almost enough for Harry to be sick. Dizziness washed over him nauseatingly, and the severe sense of disorientation he felt made his stomach twist and turn horrendously.

He blinked, the movement rapid and, somehow, unfamiliar. At the same moment his vision cleared, the ringing in his ears stopped and his nausea vanished. He felt… fine. Good, even.

How odd.

Something heavy suddenly bumped into his arm, causing him to stumble, and a voice called back to him, “Hey, watch it, kid!”

_Kid?_

_“You might want to move out of the way.”_

Harry startled so badly he almost stumbled again, his head whipping back and forth in an attempt to find the owner of the voice. Someone else knocked into him then, and this time he fell to the cold stone floor beneath him.

“Get out of the way!”

_“I did tell you to move.”_

That voice again—deep and melodic, reverberating into the very depths of his mind.

“Where are you?” Harry demanded, hating how high his voice sounded and the way his heart was racing so fast in his chest, he could feel it. He needed to _calm down_ and assess his situation.

First, he started by getting his feet back under him. His legs didn’t seem to be as long as they should have been, but that could have been his mind playing tricks on him. Then he looked around, noting his surroundings. The noise and commotion suddenly made sense.

He was in a train station. Not just any train station, but King’s Cross. The brick and high ceilings were familiar to him, and just seeing something familiar—however small—was enough to slow the racing of his heart. But what was not familiar were the people. Most women wore dresses or skirts that hung below the knee and many sported hats of all variety, most of which Harry hadn’t thought he’d ever see outside of a movie set in the forties. Most of the men wore loose suits with long coats and black bowler hats.

All the adults were inexplicably taller than him.

No one else seemed to think any of it was strange.

_“Look. There.”_

The words echoed in his mind like his own thoughts would. He wasn’t even sure he actually _heard_ them using his _ears_. He pushed that freakish thought from his mind as his eyes stopped, as if of their own volition, on a rubbish bin not more than two metres in front of him. More specifically, the newspaper lying haphazardly on top of it.

He started forward, but his own gait was so awkward and alien to him that he had to stop and appraise his limbs. His legs, through the shockingly fancy and expensive-looking trousers he was wearing, were almost as skinny as they’d been when he was younger, before he had started playing Quidditch. This had him accounting for his other body parts, all of which were smaller and scrawnier than they should have been. And just _what_ was he wearing?

“What the hell?”

An older lady who had been passing by him paused in affront, glaring heatedly at him and tutting before scurrying away.

Harry shook his head in vague disbelief before walking forward again, trying to ignore how weird it was to use legs that were assuredly _not his_.

He grabbed the newspaper and flipped it open, scanning the words on the page for any explanation of what might have happened to him and why everything—everyone—was so bizarre and _different_. He got his answer when his eyes read the date: _1 September 1938._

1938.

Harry’s eyes widened to comical proportions and he dropped the paper, stumbling back and accidentally tripping over something in his path.

_“Relax, Harry.”_

Harry startled again, this time banging his head on a metal bar that—after closer inspection—turned out to be part of a cart filled with luggage. “Relax?” he all but exploded. “You want me to _relax_? Who even _are_ you? Why am I here?”

People were starting to give him odd stares. He was rather used to that by now, though, so he deftly ignored them.

_“I would prefer to be called Axel.”_

“You’d _prefer_?” Harry’s voice went embarrassingly high in incredulity, and, perhaps, pre-pubescence. He didn’t miss the fact that the voice had ignored his second question.

_“Yes. Stand up, Harry.”_

Harry’s legs were straightening up under him before he’d given the order for them to do so, moving of their own accord. “Wha—?” He cried once he was standing up-right once more. “How did you _do_ that?”

The voice was apparently ignoring him, Harry decided after a minute of silence. He huffed and turned around, studying the cart he’d knocked into. He blinked.

A massive chest was placed at the bottom of it, a pewter cauldron sitting on top. A book entitled _The Standard Book of Spells (Year 1)_ was beside it, and beside that was a set of brass scales. Perhaps the most confounding of all was the caged owl, staring and occasionally blinking slowly at him.

It was all very familiar, even though he had never laid eyes on any one of these specific items before.

Harry looked around and swallowed, not finding anyone standing close enough to claim the cart as their own. He sighed.

“I don’t suppose one of these trains will take me home?” he asked the voice, not really expecting an answer.

But the voice said, _“I’m afraid not.”_

The craziest thing was, it actually sounded apologetic.

“Thought not.” Harry drew closer to the cart, his eyes mostly roving over the owl. Its feathers were a beautiful pattern of blacks and greys. “This mine, then?”

_“Indeed,”_ the voice— _Axel_ —drawled. _“Welcome to the past, Harry.”_


	3. tom riddle and the angle of death

“Is this a dream?”

_“Does it feel like a dream?”_

Harry did not find this response particularly helpful. How should he know? He, and probably everyone else, had had dreams before that felt perfectly real and sane while he was dreaming them. It was only after he’d truly woken up that he realized he’d been dreaming the entire time.

Perhaps that was it. This didn’t _feel_ sane at all, and Harry knew it.

He gripped the cart tightly as he pushed it forward, relishing the feel of metal beneath his skin. It was cold and solid—it felt _real_. He didn’t think his mind could create from scratch the details he saw everywhere, like the bright colors of the train station or the texture of that lady’s coat or the ridiculous mustache covering that man’s whole upper lip.

After a time listening hard at the commotion around him—the sounds of footsteps on stone, the wheels on the tracks, trains whistling, people chattering—and smelling the burn of coal and a hint of petrichor that balanced out the harshness of it, Harry said, “No.”

It didn’t feel like a dream.

Something panged inside his chest, something deep and painful. If he really was in 1938, then it appeared he was the only one. Ron and Hermione, logically, were back in 1998 where they belonged. Where _he_ belonged.

Although, he supposed he didn’t belong there anymore. He had, after all, walked into that forest to face Voldemort. He’d walked there to _die_.

It should have been a miracle that he was still alive.

Axel made a noise that sounded like a hum of agreement inside his mind. It didn’t startle Harry as much this time, although he wasn’t terribly happy to know that Axel could read his thoughts. Not that it was very surprising—he was _in_ Harry’s mind.

“So, I should be dead, then.” It was a question as much as it wasn’t one. He’d heard what Dumbledore and Snape had said in Snape’s memory.

_So the boy… the boy must die?_

_And Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential._

Yet here he was.

_“Yes.”_

Harry couldn’t tell if it was an agreement to his not-question or a reply to his last thought. It didn’t really matter.

“Then why am I here?”

Harry stared hard at the owl—whose eyes were now closed—trying not to let the emotion choking him up manifest in tears.

_“In time, Harry.”_

It sounded like something Dumbledore would say. Harry scoffed, or at least tried to, but it came out sounding wobbly and a little too close to a sob for comfort. He cleared his throat.

“Right.”

Finally he came to the platform between nine and ten—how could he ever forget this—and for a moment he just stared at the brick wall. He recalled the first time he’d ever stepped through it—he was just as lost now as he had been then, and this time there were no Weasleys to guide him.

Just a talking voice in his head.

_“You’d better hurry, Harry. The train will be leaving soon.”_

Harry almost wanted to sneer _so what?_ Maybe he wouldn’t get on. Maybe he wouldn’t participate in whatever game Axel was playing.

But something told him this wasn’t a game at all, and anyway, where else did he have to go besides Hogwarts? Hogwarts was his _home_ , no matter what year it was.

So Harry ran at the wall, and he didn’t close his eyes. He tried to tell himself there was nothing to be afraid of. He was brave, wasn’t he? And alive, which was something he hadn’t thought he would be just an hour ago, so that was a bonus.

Platform 9 ¾ was almost exactly like he remembered it. Overhead was the sign that read Hogwarts Express, eleven o’clock. The train was as scarlet as it had ever been—would be?—and the crowds were as loud and as bustling as they had been the first time. Wizarding fashion didn’t change a whole lot in sixty years, it seemed, except there were quite a few more bowler hats and oxford heels than he remembered wizards and witches in the nineties wearing.

Harry took a moment to watch the smoke from the engine drift over the heads of the crowd, struck by nostalgia. He hadn’t been here since the beginning of sixth year.

Pushing through the throng was not as arduous as it might have been if not for the fact most of the students were already on the train. Axel had been right—even without a watch, he could tell the train was likely to be leaving soon.

He found a compartment with only one or two students—first years, by the look of it—and stopped his cart. Or he tried to, anyway, but apparently his legs and arms were no longer his to control because he kept going, further towards the back of the train.

_“Not here.”_

Harry was full of indignance, his cheeks heating as he fought to get command back over his limbs, but before he could make a scene by loudly expressing his displeasure his feet had finally stopped moving.

_“Here.”_

“Stop doing that,” Harry seethed, quietly even though the din of the crowd would likely mask his words no matter how loudly he spoke them. He wanted to turn back, but before he could he caught a glimpse of himself in the window of the compartment Axel had stopped him in front of.

A flash of white—hair that was the complete opposite shade of his own, like the bright silver of a full moon, and blue eyes as clear as crystal. Young, cheeks rounded with the softness of a child no older than eleven or twelve years old.

Harry gaped, and watched as the child’s mouth opened with the movement.

Holy shit.

_“Get in. Hurry.”_

Harry was too distracted to protest much, and he decided to obey before his limbs were overtaken again. He lifted the owl’s cage and the set of brass scales, abruptly wishing he had his wand.

_“In the trunk.”_

Harry paused at these words for a long moment of indecision, before he finally heeded them. He set down the cage and the scales and opened the trunk. And sure enough, he found a wand he’d never seen before laying on top of all the other items in the trunk.

His breath hitched at the familiar-looking wood—he’d know it anywhere, saw it now in his mind’s eye. White, long, knobby—and, frankly, terrifying—fingers wrapped around another tan-colored wand. A yew wand.

This wasn’t that wand— _his_ wand. It was shorter, almost the same length as his original holly, and the grooves and divots and hollows of the hilt were different. He slowly reached out his unfamiliar hand and picked it up, his fingers—not _his_ fingers, not really—wrapping around the warm length of it.

It settled easily in his palm, magic crackling pleasantly at his fingertips, zinging enthusiastically through his veins. He almost felt guilty, like he was somehow betraying his old, broken wand by utilizing another so effortlessly.

“Whose wand is this?” he asked, and he had to clear his throat after when the words came out croaky.

_“Mine,”_ said Axel. Harry didn’t think he was imagining the added on, _Obviously. “One of them, at least.”_

“You’ve got more than one?”

A sound like a chuckle resounded through his head, and _wow_ , that was weird.

Harry shut the lid of the trunk and flicked the wand, muttering a low, “ _Wingardium Leviosa.”_ His magic flowed through the wand like he’d been using it his whole life, and one by one the items lifted from the cart. He didn’t care if anyone might find it suspicious that an apparent eleven year old already knew this spell, and he encouraged his new belongings through the door as he followed after them up the compartment steps.

That was when he caught sight of a lone figure already occupying one of the seats, almost pressed completely against the window. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you there. Would you mind if I—”

The boy’s head turned and Harry’s voice broke off, his breath leaving him like he’d just been brutally punched in the sternum.

_Oh, no._

_“Oh, yes.”_

A startling shiver rippled down his spine at the evident amusement in Axel’s voice. He had _known._

Oh, hell no.

Tom Riddle blinked slowly at him, absurdly reminding him for a moment of the owl currently levitating near his head. He was the same boy Harry remembered from Dumbledore’s memory in the Pensieve, dark hair and clever eyes and all. His brow was slightly furrowed, as if he was curious by Harry’s sudden appearance, but Harry could see annoyance flashing through his eyes, gone again as quickly as it had come.

“Would you mind if I joined you?”

They were his words, or at least they had been about to be, but it wasn’t _him_ speaking. And he hated it—hated that someone could take control of his body, of his voice on a whim. Hated that these things weren’t really _his_ at all.

Harry felt trapped in skin that wasn’t his own, and for the first time since he’d arrived here, he thought he might truly start to panic while staring into the dark depths of Riddle’s eyes.

But then Riddle was nodding, and Harry could breathe again. The owl hooted softly into his ear and when he turned his head, he found it staring at him intently. For one insane second, Harry thought it might be trying to apologize, but he quickly shook his head to clear such an idiotic thought.

What would it even have to apologize for? It was an _owl._

Harry flicked his wand so that the items floating around him settled under and over the seat opposite Riddle. He didn’t miss the way Riddle’s eyes followed the movement, visibly intrigued.

Once Harry had sat down—reluctant but unwilling to try and find another compartment when the train could leave at any moment, and grudgingly accepting that Axel probably wouldn’t let him leave, anyway—Riddle’s eyes had cleared of all emotion.

He asked tonelessly, if perhaps bordering on _polite_ , “What’s your name?”

It was on the tip of Harry’s tongue— _Harry_ —the only response he’d ever had to this question, but what came out was, “Axel.”

Harry’s hands clenched into fists. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to that, didn’t think he’d ever want to. A fleeting thought flickered through his mind, and he wasn’t sure if it was his or Axel’s— _It’s not just_ your _body_ —but it made him straighten up.

Oh.

Riddle continued to stare at him, and Harry swiftly realized he was waiting for a surname. He dithered, but Axel did not answer for him. A few seconds later, Harry hesitantly offered, “Evans. Axel Evans.”

There was no instant rebuke, so he thought Axel might have been satisfied with that. Harry thought placatingly, _Something for you, something for me._

He received an agreeable hum for his efforts.

“I’m Tom Riddle,” Riddle said.

Harry almost snorted, _You don’t say,_ but he didn’t think he’d be able to explain that away. His metaphorical hackles were still raised in the presence of his ultimate enemy, regardless that at the moment he was only eleven years old.

Tom Riddle was dangerous at any age, and Harry would remember that.

They didn’t shake hands or acknowledge each other much beyond that. It was so completely different from his first meeting with Ron as to be surreal.

So it came as a surprise when Riddle said, out of the blue, “I like your owl.”

Harry blinked and turned his head to the side to glance at the cage he’d set on the seat beside him, the owl’s eyes closed once again. He wanted to say, _It’s not mine_ , but instead he said, “Thanks.” He added, like an afterthought, “His name is—” and then abruptly realized he didn’t know. For once, he was happy when Axel took over with barely a pause, “— Azrail.”

The name echoed in his mind. He didn’t know why it made him so uneasy all of a sudden.

Riddle’s head tilted to the side, and he asked, “What does it mean?”

Axel’s voice inside his head was heavy with the weight of his next words… _“The Angel of Death.”_

And Harry’s stomach turned to ice.

**Author's Note:**

> if you're enjoying this story, i'd really love to read about it in the comments below! :) as always, come find me on [tumblr](https://padraigendragon.tumblr.com/)!


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